


Where the Angels Sit

by chibistarlyte



Series: As You Wish [1]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, Gen, Minor Suicidal Thoughts, Smoking, Wishes, Young Adult!John, Young Adult!Sherlock
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-22
Updated: 2012-09-22
Packaged: 2017-11-14 19:04:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,937
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/518514
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chibistarlyte/pseuds/chibistarlyte
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>While having a smoke and contemplating his life, Sherlock meets an interesting stranger who helps him change his outlook on his life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Where the Angels Sit

**Author's Note:**

> This idea came to me at about 5:00 this morning while I was at work, and would not leave me alone until I finished writing this fic. Inspired by the song "Wishing Well" by The Airborne Toxic Event.
> 
> Many thanks to Aki for being my super-amazing beta! This story has not been Brit picked, so any Americanisms are entirely my own fault. I'm open to suggestions on how to fix any and all errors!
> 
> Enjoy!

Sherlock’s dry and chapped lips rounded into an oval as he slowly blew out a puff of smoke, watching the white fumes curl up into the chilly night air. Inhalations of nicotine at regular intervals helped to dull the jitters prickling just beneath the first layer of his epidermis. He wasn’t cold, oh no—his heavy woolen coat and long knit scarf ensured he kept warm. Sherlock always suffered from shivers when coming down from a blissful high. The cigarettes helped, but they unfortunately could not completely sedate the itchy feeling throughout his body.

 

Perched on the edge of a fountain, he raked his glassy, bloodshot eyes across the water. Under the artificial blue-white light of the nearby lamp, a myriad of copper and silver coins glittered from the bottom of the shallow, rippling waters like the stars that could never be seen from London. As a substitute, the sight was merely mediocre, but it would have to do. It was still pretty, at least, and Sherlock rarely took the time to appreciate the little things like this.

 

Despite the frigid air, he had half a mind to dunk himself into the fountain and clean himself off. He felt disgusting—dark, wild curls shining from oils and caked with street grime; the dried, salty roughness of days-old sweat on his skin. Looking back, he couldn’t even recall the last time he showered. No idea when he’d last consumed something that could even remotely qualify as food. Having been kicked out of his most recent flat, he had nowhere to go and no one to turn to. Loneliness and the dangerous euphoria of cocaine—that was all he had.

 

And like hell he’d go to his brother for help.

 

Pale, hazy grey eyes stared down at the coins through the too-clear depths. Sherlock idly wondered how many people had spent their precious one and five-pence pieces on this silly fountain. How many people truly thought that, by placing all of their faith in a metal disc of currency, their deepest desire would be granted? How many people wished for the fun of it? How many out of desperation? If Sherlock actually believed in that nonsense, he’d have a few wishes to make himself. A wish for direction, for purpose. He was a wasted talent, a university drop-out junkie with all this brain power and nowhere to let it expand. He’d wish for a way to quiet that bloody thing that didn’t require copious amounts of deadly intoxicants. He was already pushing his corporeal limits as it was—he wasn’t sure how much longer his malnourished and damaged body would last at this rate.

 

Though perhaps death _was_ the solution. A final call of silence to his mind perpetually stuck in a marathon of thoughts. He could just fade away, and finally be at peace. Cease his meaningless existence.

 

“Excuse me?”

 

The unfamiliar voice drew Sherlock out of his depressing thoughts and he glanced up through his eyelashes. A short, blond stranger was standing next to him, holding a cigarette between his thumb and forefinger.

 

“Do you have a light?” the stranger asked, gesturing with the cancer stick in his hand.

 

Normally, Sherlock would have just told the bloke to piss off and go find his own stupid lighter. However, by some freak force of nature and not of his own volition, he produced his cheap lighter from his coat pocket. With his numb thumb, he clicked the little button and summoned forth a small burst of flame. The stranger, cigarette now pinched between his lips, leaned in and caught the flame on the end of the tobacco roll. He sucked in until the cigarette lit, then backed off and let out a spluttering exhale of smoke. Clearly, he didn’t smoke often. But nicotine did wonders for the nerves, and this man was surely anxious about something.

 

“Cheers,” came a slightly raspy thanks.

 

Sherlock snorted—half in annoyance, half in attempts to clear the mucus build-up from his sinus cavity. Damn late autumn weather.

 

Completely oblivious to Sherlock’s not-so-subtle hints at his lack of want for company and conversation, the stranger took a seat next to him on the edge of the fountain. “John,” he said by means of introduction.

 

“Sherlock,” he said, despite himself. Sherlock tapped the ashes off the end of his cigarette, watching them flutter down into the water.

 

Turning his attention to John’s reflection on the water’s mirror-like surface, he got his first good look at the man. Older, but not by much. Blond hair, interspersed with strands of light chestnut. Cut extremely short, a style that screamed military. A soldier, then. Left-handed, for that was the hand with which he held his nicotine fix. Rough and calloused hands, from handling both weapons and…medical tools? Ah, there was a cut alongside the right middle finger, most likely from a practice procedure. Skin dry and cracked from the cold and overuse of antibacterial soap. So, army doctor. Inexperienced, either still in training or just finishing his studies. The bags below John’s eyes said so—lots of late nights recently. He was tired, but his posture was still impeccable. And his eyes…they, much like his very expressive face, were the most honest eyes Sherlock had ever seen. Cobalt blue with sprinklings of cinnamon, alight with the promise of a bright future ahead of him.

 

Promise that Sherlock himself no longer possessed.

 

“You’re nervous.” Sherlock spared John a sideways glance, and their eyes met for the very first time.

 

John’s lips quirked in a small, slightly sheepish smile. “That obvious, huh?”

 

“Painfully so. You’re going off to Afghanistan soon, I wager.”

 

At that, John almost choked on his inhale. “H-how did you know?”

 

“Your haircut and your posture. You’re in the army. Medic, judging by your hands,” Sherlock rattled off, taking a long and deep drag. Expelling the nebulous chemical from his lungs, he tacked on, “What I don’t know is why you’re alone in the middle of London at half two in the morning.”

 

It took a moment for John to realize he was gaping. The drop of burning ash onto his hand jolted him out of his stupor, also eliciting a hiss of pain at the fresh burn on his numb skin. “Amazing,” he breathed, almost too quietly for Sherlock to hear. But hear, he did, and it shocked him. No one…no one had ever complimented his deductions before.

 

Then, John said, “Right on all counts. I’m being deployed at the end of the month. First tour. I ship out tomorrow morning for preparations. Just…wanted to see London one last time, I suppose.”

 

John’s shoulders deflated, and he mindlessly puffed on his cigarette. He looked scared, like he was doubting himself something fierce. This man, despite actually being a few years Sherlock’s senior, seemed so innocent. So naïve. So unblemished by the harsh realities of life. It almost pained Sherlock to think that such a pure, luminary being would soon be tainted by the horrors of war.

 

“You’ll be fine,” Sherlock finally said after several minutes of heavy silence, stubbing his cigarette out on the cold concrete only to pull another from his pocket. He didn’t know what on God’s green earth compelled him to say it, but now that it was out in the open, he very well couldn’t take it back. Not that he _wanted_ to take it back. He lit up his new cigarette with a scowl. If there were two things Sherlock wasn’t, they were complimentary and reassuring. Yet here he was, trying to make this total stranger—no, not stranger, _John_ —feel better.

 

He must’ve still been high.

 

“Well…thanks,” John muttered, stubbing out his own cigarette. “I just hope everything goes well.” He then let out a chuckle, surprising the lanky junkie at his side. Curious, his cigarette hovering just in front of his mouth, Sherlock observed as John dug a coin out from his pocket and regarded it thoughtfully. “Maybe I should wish on it.”

 

Smoke billowed out of his mouth in a thick cloud as Sherlock scoffed. “Pointless. Wishing for things serves no purpose. It’s not as if tossing a coin into an oversized water basin will bring one’s inner desires to fruition,” he stated, his tone just short of scathing.

 

John seemed to seriously consider Sherlock’s words before formulating an answer of his own. “Wishing isn’t pointless…but yes, wishing alone isn’t enough. It’s okay to have wishes, so long as you actually work hard to make them come true. They won’t happen on their own. If you want your life to change, you have to put forth the effort to make it change.”

 

Even though John was only speaking in generalities, his surprisingly wise words hit Sherlock a little too close to home. Of course…it made so much sense, what John was saying. It was the spineless dreamers that drive Sherlock up the wall, but if one looked at their wishes as achievable goals rather than farfetched fantasies….

 

Suddenly, it didn’t seem so impossible to turn his life around. To get sober. To find his niche in society.

 

John smiled the most radiant smile and nudged his new—acquaintance? Friend?—smoking buddy in the shoulder. “Come on. Let’s make a wish together,” he suggested, flashing his copper coin in Sherlock’s line of vision.

 

Sherlock just shook his head, inhaling the rest of his cigarette and crushing the butt beneath his heel. “You go ahead,” he said, watching intently as John closed his eyes for a few seconds before tossing the coin. It hit the water with a _plunk_ and joined the others at the bottom of the fountain. “What did you wish for, John?”

 

“I can’t tell you, Sherlock. If I do, it won’t come true.”

 

“Oh. Of course.”

 

The two of them settled into silence, each lost in his own thoughts. Sherlock fought back another bout of jitters and the urge to smoke yet another cigarette. Absentmindedly, he scratched at his wool-clad arms, the marks from the needles starting to burn. He was going to need  another hit soon.

 

But…he didn’t _want_ it.

 

“I need to head back now,” John announced, mouth pulled into a thin line, looking for all the world like a man being led to his death. Which, in his case, might very well be true. Sherlock wished it weren’t so. “Thank you, again, for the light.”

 

“Mhm,” Sherlock hummed, paused, then hesitantly added, “and…good luck out there.” Daring to look up at his new friend, Sherlock was greeted with a grateful smile. In return, for the first time in far too long, he cracked a tiny grin of his own.

 

“Thanks. Be seeing you.”

 

And then John was gone, off to fight a war and save lives, much like he, unknowingly, had just saved Sherlock’s.

 

Sherlock remained at the fountain for a long while after, just staring into the water. He did his best to ignore his body’s cravings for more cocaine, bit back nausea, and kept himself as still as possible to quell the tremors coursing through him. A shaking hand, at long last, fished a five-pence coin from the pocket of his trousers. Willing as much of his own life force as he could into the little metal trinket, he eventually let it drop from his frozen fist, watching it shatter the hydrogen bonds on the surface of the water and sink into the depths, carrying his dearest wish with it.

 

He wished to, someday, meet John again. And he had a feeling that this wish might actually, for once, come true.


End file.
